16 thoughts on “Security Bot 2”

I really like this idea. I only wish he went into a little bit more detail on his build. I’m a bit of a noob when it comes to some of this stuff and I just want to understand how it all went together a bit better.

@Caleb
I think most people are happy to get the mechanical side of a hexapod working and aren’t so interested in autonomy. Plus with a lot of the hexapods you see, I’d imagine payload limits and/or interference from the legs would complicate mounting common sensors.

One of my labmates has been working on his own hexapod for a while, and while it’s not fully autonomous, he did use genetic algorithms to have it teach itself to walk, and has demonstrated vision-based path planning/obstacle avoidance for a class project.

One nice addition would be a magnetic inductive charge pad. The security bot drives onto a plate, and the extra weight flips a micro switch which turning on the magnetic field to top up it’s batteries. Once the battery is full enough it drives away and the loss of weight turns off the magnetic field. It may not be the most efficient way to recharge but it would allow for a few security bots to use the system. One or two active while the other recuperates.

Thanks for commenting on my robot. The picture above is the robot during testing. I should have some completed pictures up soon. I will try today. If you saw on the blog that the first robot has a charging dock I have made another one for this one. I didn’t go with inductive because of the efficiency. It would take forever to charge 2 batteries. It already takes a long time to charge 2 6600mAh batteries. Both sbot’s have cameras that get transmitted to my computer via their own 900mhz radio.

You can use any MCU you want. DFRobot sells a custom Arduino for it that fits without drilling. I had to drill a few holes to mount the mega. That is all you would have to do to use another MCU, just drill mounting holes. There isn’t any special about it for use with the Arduino.